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It should be obvious to any person with some marketing experience online that there is no magic pill to success.

To be honest with you I’ve grown tired of reading email after email filled with claims on how easy it is to sell online.

Whilst this can be true, what many fail to tell you is there’s more to it than just putting up a website and driving traffic to it.

Are you ready for the “real” truth behind successful online marketing?

Here it is…

“Fanatically test and track everything!”

Let me say it again, it’s that important…

“Fanatically test and track everything!”

Before you get started with your testing and tracking you need to know what your website conversion rate is right now. This gives you a yardstick to measure future improvements to. In scientific terms this is called your “control”.

Knowing your conversion rate before making, say a change in your headline, is the only way to know for certain if the change made has a positive or negative impact.

And by split testing one headline against another you’ll soon find a winner that beats your control.

Here’s a word of warning… never make a steadfast change to your copy based on some other marketers advice.

This is critical and it’s where so many people fall over…

What works for them may not work for you too.

Plus, how do you know they’re not merely repeating some “mantra” they read or heard elsewhere?

A classic example of this is to make your headline a bright red color. Whilst in some markets this might be the “winning” headline color, in other markets it could fall flat on it’s face and reduce sales conversions massively. Can you see the importance of testing?

Whilst it’s true you can increase sales by increasing the traffic to your site, it’s not the easiest way to do it.

Let’s face it, increasing your traffic is either going to cost you more money or a lot of time and effort (certainly more than split testing and tracking everything to improve your existing sales conversions).

However, just throwing more traffic at your website without knowing your baseline conversion metrics means you’re leaving money on the table because you do not yet know the full potential of your sales process.

Let’s play with the numbers for a moment to give you a good example of what I mean…

Say you have a 1.5% conversion rate and 1000 visitors each week.

That’s equal to 15 sales a week. Not bad.

And each sale is worth $20 in profit.

1.5% x 1000 = 15 X $20 = $300 profit each week Now, increase traffic 50%… 1.5% X 1500 = 22.5 x $20 = $450 profit

Let’s step things up a bit…

Now you increase your conversions to 2.5% and send more traffic, let’s see what happens next…

2.5% x 1000 = 25 x $500 profit. That’s $200 more than in the example above and $50 more than sending more traffic.

Let’s send more traffic to our 2.5% converting site and see what happens with a 50% increase.

2.5% x 1500 = 37.5 sales x $20 = $750 profit each week. Replicate this over 4 weeks and your financial picture changes dramatically.

Always keep this in mind…

Only when you’ve got your sales conversion percentages as high as possible should you begin to consider increasing traffic. This ensures you get the very most return on your investment (ROI) in any marketing campaigns you run that send you more traffic.

Becoming fanatical at testing and tracking is the true path to online wealth.

To help you get started here are the testing and tracking tools I use and recommend you use too…

Google Analytics: www.google.com/analytics/

Google Analytics tells you exactly where your organic traffic is coming from, what pages people visit, how long they stay for and even how well it converts.

Google Website Optimizer: services.google.com/websiteoptimizer/

This other service by Google is integrated with Google AdWords, but don’t let this hold you back because you can use it by itself on any website you own and costs nothing to use. Google Website Optimizer enables you to run “split tests” where you test one website component against another automatically.

To access both these superb tools for free all you need is a Google Account.

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Before I get into the 7 website design mistakes you should avoid I need to let you know about an important principal that you need to understand first…

According to recent studies 79% of web users scan rather than read webpages.

When you’re visiting websites do you read almost every word? I’m willing to bet that you don’t. If you’re anything like me you most likely scan and look for words, phrases or images that catch your attention then decide if you want to go any further.

Why do we scan?

Let’s face it reading from a computer screen is tiring for the eyes and makes you read at least 25% slower than reading from paper. So it’s no wonder people attempt to minimize the number of words and resort to scanning pages.

Not only this but web use is motivated by the desire to same time, so as a result we tend to act a lot like sharks (keep moving or die). We just don’t have the time to read through every page we’re presented with and we know we don’t need to read everything there is.

When we’re surfing around we’re only interested in a fraction of what’s on the page, the bits that match our interests …and scanning is how it’s done.

So why am I talking about this?

The fact is understanding how someone scans your web pages plays a huge role in the designing of your website, even the layout of a sales letter on a direct response website needs to be carefully considered.

Look at it like this… in 3 seconds can people pick out the key bits of information they need to decide if the website you’ve designed matches their interest?

Here’s what I mean…

This is how a designer builds a webpage:

Here’s how a user interested in the subject of “website design” sees the page:

Are you applying this principal of “scanning” to your own website design?

If the Amazon example of website design above is how it should be done what shouldn’t you do?

Here’s a list of 7 things to avoid (at all cost!) when designing your direct response website…

1. Avoid placing lots of unrelated banner ads on your pages. Not only does this make your website look “tacky” it also makes it harder for people to decide what your site is all about. This is the quickest way to lose traffic and credibility.

2. Avoid large chunks of text all formatted in the same size and same weight.

Break up your text into small easy to scan chunks of information. Make certain words and phrases bold and italic to help guide people’s eyes around your text.

3. Avoid making your design more complicated than it needs to be by giving your website visitor more than 1 or 2 choices on things you want them to do.

4. Avoid having a “Welcome to my website” headline, often this is what people read first as it’s usually the biggest text on the page.

You simply MUST have a headline there that contains benefit orientated keywords and phrases your visitors will recognize, this helps them decide if your website is what they’re interested in.

5. Avoid using more than 3 main colors in your web page design (too many colors make the page look confusing and a visual mess).

6. Avoid having more than 1 focal point on your web page, if you have too many things competing for attention your visitors will not know what to scan first.

7. Avoid making your website more complicated than it needs to be. Simplicity sells because when it’s easier for people to understand your websites offer the better your results will be.

Break your website design into small chunks of information, imagine each “chunk” as the first thing people see on your site, will they understand what you’re offering?

Use the Amazon page as an example of this “chunking” of information into easy to scan parts.

Here’s an example of an easy to scan direct response website.

Take a look at your own website design right now and ask yourself how easy is your website to scan. Does it avoid all 7 of the design mistakes I’ve outlined above?

Let me know how you get on, if you’d like a quick review of your website design just let me know by posting a reply to this post.

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Today we received this great testimonial from Robert Patterson that blew me away.

Here’s what he said…

“As a testament to your awesome copy and landing page - I ordered “Make My Website Sell!” twice, once on the 13th October 07 and again today. Doh!

Your fast response is a testament to your sound business practices and ethics.

Keep up the awesome work.”

-Robert Patterson

“Make My Website Sell!” is one of our biggest selling products right now with an incredible conversion rate on the squeeze page of 58.08%. You can pick up a copy here where you’ll receive a $30 discount if you’re quick enough!

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So what’s the answer?

There are 2 things you can do…

1. Increase your conversions
2. Increase your traffic

But which do you think is easier and will bring you the quickest possible results?

If you think it’s traffic you’d be dead wrong because the answer is in fact conversions!

Improving your website conversion is the key because all it can take is one small tweak and you can boost your sales almost overnight - but get this…. with the same amount of traffic.

So what areas should you focus boosting conversions on?

Here’s a short list to get you started…

1. The conversion of your traffic from your squeeze page to your sales page

2. The conversion of your sales page into your upsell offer

3. The conversion of the upsell offer to your thank you page.

Here’s where it gets really interesting because when you focus on making improvements to the conversion of your squeeze page (where your traffic arrives) you automatically see massive improvements in sales.

Why’s this? simply because more people make it from your squeeze page to your sales page. The more people make it to your sales page the more people will ultimately buy from you, and so on through your website.

This is the “exact” thing that I did (and continue to do) with my own products. Focus on improving the conversions of your squeeze page (or optin page) first then work on making improvements in the other areas.

I’m sure by now you can see exactly why you should be doing this.

Recently I created a website to help you increase your conversions… I think you’ll find very interesting because it’s a classic example of everything I teach.

There’s also free report on conversions waiting for you to pick up there, so if you’d like to boost your conversions overnight by making a few small changes to your website then this is just for you…

http://BigSellingConversions.com

If you don’t know how to get started improving your conversions create a Google account for yourself then activate Google Analytics and the Google Website Optimizer.

These tools will show you just how well your website is converting now and from this you’ll be able to measure the effects of any changes you make.

It’s all about testing, tracking and letting the numbers point the way to what “really” make you money online.

You can create a Google account here for free.

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Many times we purchase based solely on a recommendation from a trusted friend, family member or associate.

Jimmy D. Brown told a story of when he launched one of his new courses. He received an email from a customer who (amazingly :o) had never heard of him. And yet she bought a copy of the course without every taking a look at it herself.

Why? Because one of her close friends had bought it and loved it and had recommended that she obtain a copy herself.

And - voila - there was another sale.

She never read the sales letter. He didn’t touch any emotional nerve inside of her. She didn’t recognize any particular quantity or quality. She wasn’t expecting results (at least not based on his offer). But still she made a purchase.

And that was SOLELY because of a referral. A recommendation. An endorsement. A testimonial.

That all add up to sales.

We’ll talk about this one in much more detail later (I’ll even show you how to get these referrals for free!) I just want to introduce you to the idea now. People make purchases in a lot of cases simply because someone make a recommendation.

How many times have you gotten your hands on something because someone suggested it?

I know I’ve got my hands on a nice set of Logitech z4 speakers because someone recommended them to me!

I bet you’ve made similar purchases yourself.

How can you make it easy for people to recommend your website to others?

Maybe you add a tell a friend form to your subscriber thank you page of your website, or how about setting up a special tell a friend page you simply send your subscribers to, just by using email. You can even incentivize it by offering something of value if they tell “X’ number of friends.

What ideas do you have to tap into the immense power of word of mouth marketing and the law of referrals?

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When someone visits your website, they’re looking for something specific.

He (or She) didn’t stumble across your site by accident.

Learn this: Everyone who visits ANY site online is looking to meet a need in his life. Did you catch that?

Let me repeat it because it is important. Everyone who visits ANY site online is looking to meet a need in his life.

There are no exceptions. Whether it be to make new friends in a chat room, purchase a bouquet of flowers to ship to mom, or find information on how to promote a website, we surf the net to meet SOME need in our lives.

Your website must provide some way of meeting whatever our need is that led us to your place.

There are TWO reasons, and two reasons alone, why people make purchases…

Listen to today’s podcast to find out what they are!

Download the MP3 File

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Another reason why we buy things is because of value.

I once heard a friend of mine tell a story about her immigrant grandmother. Her grandmother came home with two pairs of jeans that didn’t fit anyone in the entire family. My friend asked her, “Grandma, why did you buy these jeans when no one can use them?”

Her response? “They were such a bargain - I saved more than $40!”

The point is this: we all love a good deal. We buy things because they are valuable to us.

Now, there are two basic ways that we judge value…

1. Quantity. Two for the price of one. Buy one get one free. Free medium drink with any hamburger order. Extra value meal. Free installation with any satellite purchase. Thirty days free to new members. These are all ways of providing MORE quantity for the same price. And that, in our estimation, is a determining factor in how valuable something is.

After all - what’s more valuable: A large pizza for $14.95 or a large pizza with a free 2-liter coke for $14.95? Obviously the free 2-liter coke adds more value to the order. That is a quantity increase. And it prompts us to order, simply because it is more “bang for the buck.”

In direct marketing it was a collection of THOUSANDS of “money making reports.” Online, it’s a collection of dozens of “ebooks.” Neither of these usually has a lot of useful information in them — but there sure is a lot of them! And many people buy because of the sheer volume they represent. It just sounds like an awful lot for the price tag that is attached.

2 Quality. The other measuring stick of value is quality.

(more…)

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Here’s the recording of the “Call To Action” post from the other day… Don’t miss out on these ever so simple conversion boosting tips!

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